obelixx

Latest posts by obelixx

Have fun Merlot. Have a look at this link too as it gives advice on honeysuckles - http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=439 Some are fine in sun but some do better with a bit of shade so you'll need to pick your variety accordingly.

First of all you need to attache trellis or a row of wires stretched horizontally at 12 to 18 inch intervals to teh fence to support your climbers. Then the whole bed needs completely digging over to check for bits of rubble and stones and remove any weeds and their roots. This will also break up the soil and aerate it making it easier for roots to grow.

Then you need to condition the soil by adding some moisture retentive matter which will also introduce beneficial organisms into the soil so work in a good thick layer of well rotted manure or garden compost which you can buy at DIY stores and garden centres if needs be. Then select your chosen plants and dunk their pots in a bucket of water until all air bubbles stop forming.

Make a planting hole a bit deeper and twice as wide as the pot and then use more soil conditioner mixed with soil to back fill the hole and end up with the crown of the plant (where stems emerge from the compost) at the same level in the soil as it was in the pot. Water well and then mulch with some more conditioner to retain moisture. Tie the stems in loosely to their supports and keep the plants watered during dry spells until next autumn.

The weather here has been atrocious so no gardening all week and I very much doubt I'll get any done today which is a pity as I have strawberries to plant out and transplant and some beans ready to go out so today would have been ideal from a lunar point of view.

Let's hope its better for the weekend and I can get my baby beets planted out and fork over my cleared flower beds taking out nasties like couch grass roots so they're ready for planting up on the 14th.

The new, organic approved, ferrous based slug pellets work well and don't produce unsightly trails of slimy, oozing corpses. The slugs hide and die out of sight and no other wildlife or pets are harmed.

Scatter thinly, but regularly from about St Valentine's day or a bit later if it's a cold winter. That way you get the perishers as they emerge from hibernation or hatch from eggs and before they've had time to munch or breed.

My entire veg plot is to the north of my house but most of it gets sun in summer when the sun is higgh over the house and it gets sun before 9am and after 3pm between the équinoxes in March and September as there are no neighbouring buildings or trees.

I grow a wide range of stuff including pumpkins in the sunniest bed and have rhubarb and strawberries in beds that get no direct sun from September to March..

Redcurrants don't need full sun and you can also grow crops like kale, salad leaves and Chinese greens.

Good luck. I have all the above in my garden but many more which have shelter from other plants or trellis panels so they're not quite so wind blown - Sunset, Princess Diana, Betty Corning, Little Nell, Omoshiro, Westerplatte, mme Julia Correvon, Niobe, Blue Angel, Rahvarinne all cope with sunshine and don't fade.

My garden is very exposed to winds from all directions. I find Ciccolina, Etoile Violette, Red Balon and Red Robin do best in the most exposed bits and their flowers don't fade in strong sun. You should also be fine with alba luxurians and caerulea luxurians. If you have a lot of wall to cover, try Huldine.

I like seasonal asparagus too but to get the green stuff, it has to be Spanish as the Belgians like the fat blanched white stuff and I don't. I don't buy it from further away than Spain. I did try growing my own but it struggled with winteres here and was toatally wiped out in Jan and Feb 2009.

I watched the allotment challenge with my non gardening daughter last night. It was very dull this week and I was sorry to see the couple leaving as they at least tried unusual veg. Their creamy eggplant was so much more attractive than those fat purple aubergines. I can't see real gardeners and allotmenteers being indoors enough to enjoy a topiary stle flower arrangement of sunflowers so what's the point of that challenge? A simple jug of sweet peas or almost anything else is so much more attractive.